Messer (Germany)

Numerous industrial applications such as aluminum smelters, electrolysis plants and large data centers, require DC feeding currents of several hundred kA. Within the project DEMO200, a demonstrator for a superconducting single-pole 200 kA DC busbar was developed, including suitable current leads. The demonstrator consists of ten identical modules, each with a current capacity of 20 kA. The ten modules are electrically connected in series since a 200 kA DC source was unavailable for testing purposes. Thus, the magnetic self-field effects and Lorentz forces are the same as in the parallel target configuration, but a 20 kA source is sufficient. The demonstrator has a length of 2 m and its ten modules are each based on sixty 12 mm wide REBCO superconducting tapes. The modules are joined in a compact structure with a diameter of 300 mm which withstands thermal contraction and the large Lorentz forces. The demonstrator's design operation temperature was 70 K, but finally the tests were conducted at 77 K. Despite this shortcoming, DEMO200 carried a current of 10 x 18.9 kADC. The current leads and low ohmic connectors complied with the requirements. As a result, SuprAl, a 600 m long busbar, is now being built for TRIMET in Hamburg and is also presented.

Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic skin condition characterized by the formation of painful nodules, abscesses, and tunnels, typically in intertriginous areas. While HS primarily affects adults, it causes in particular severe distress when it affects adolescent patients. Physicians prefer to avoid the use of systemic medications and surgery in children due to the potential side effects, psychological burden, and long-term consequences. The device-based LAight® therapy combines intense pulsed light and radiofrequency and received EU-wide approval in 2017 for the treatment of adults with all severities of HS. Since 2017, 96 adolescent patients in Germany and Austria have been treated off-label with LAight. A mixed model for repeated measures over 36 weeks on the endpoints Hidradenitis Suppurativa Severity Score System (IHS4), NRS Pain, and Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) showed that patients starting treatment with a high burden significantly benefited from treatment, while those starting with a low burden could be effectively stabilized at a low level. HS and its management can cause considerable stress and anxiety for children and their families. Gentle and well-tolerated treatments, such as LAight therapy, can contribute to a more positive experience for patients and consequently improve their quality of life.

ABSTRACTBackground/ObjectivesTwo Phase III randomized controlled trials were conducted in the US (ULTRA I) and Germany (ULTRA II) to investigate the efficacy of incobotulinumtoxinA for simultaneous treatment of upper facial lines (UFLs: glabellar frown lines [GFLs], horizontal forehead lines [HFLs] and lateral canthal lines [LCLs]).Patients/MethodsHealthy adults with moderate to severe GFLs, HFLs, and symmetrical LCLs were enrolled. Participants were randomized 2:1:1 to three groups: placebo, UFLs, and GFLs & HFLs (ULTRA I) or LCLs (ULTRA II). All participants received up to 64 units of incobotulinumtoxinA in the main period (MP) and were eligible for two additional treatment cycles in the open‐label extensions (OLEX). Endpoints included participant‐ and investigator‐assessed Global Aesthetic Improvement Scale (pGAIS and iGAIS, respectively; any improvement defined as ≥ +1 score versus baseline) and the percentage of GFL, HFL, and LCL responders, defined as ≥ 1‐grade improvement in Merz Aesthetics Scale (MAS) score versus baseline at maximum contraction.ResultsFor pGAIS at Day 30, the proportion of participants with any improvement was very high (> 97%) across all three treatment cycles. iGAIS results were similar and slightly higher than pGAIS results. In the MP, investigator and participant MAS assessments were similar, with > 78% of participants showing a positive treatment response for UFLs up to Day 90; responses in the placebo groups remained low at all time points (< 13%). MAS results in the OLEX were consistent with the MP.ConclusionsAdditional endpoints, including pGAIS, iGAIS, and MAS scores, corroborate prior ULTRAI/II findings and demonstrate the efficacy of incobotulinumtoxinA for simultaneous treatment of UFLs.Trial RegistrationULTRA I: NCT04594213; ULTRA II: NCT04622254

Understanding conspecifics' age classes is crucial for animals, facilitating adaptive behavioral responses to their social environment. This may include gathering and integrating information through multiple modalities. Using a cross-modal preferential-looking paradigm, we investigated whether dogs possess a cross-modal mental representation of conspecific age classes. In Experiment 1, dogs were presented with images of an adult dog and a puppy projected side by side on a wall while a vocalization of either an adult dog or a puppy was played back simultaneously. To test the effect of relative body size between adult dog and puppy images, two size conditions (natural size and same size) were employed for visual stimuli. We examined dogs' looking behavior in response to cross-modally matched versus mismatched stimuli. We predicted that if dogs have cross-modal representations of age classes, they would exhibit prolonged attention toward matched images compared to mismatched ones. In Experiment 2, we administered the same paradigm within an eye-tracking experiment to further improve the measurement quality of dogs' looking times. However, dogs' looking times in either experiment did not demonstrate significant differences based on the match or mismatch between image and vocalization. Instead, we observed a size effect, indicating dogs' increased attention toward larger adult dog images compared to smaller puppy images. Consequently, we found no evidence of cross-modal representation of age class in dogs. Nonetheless, we found increased looking time and pupil size upon hearing puppy vocalizations compared to adult vocalizations in Experiment 2, suggesting that dogs exhibited heightened arousal when hearing puppy whining. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Lipedema, also known as lipohyperplasia dolorosa (LiDo), is a painful condition affecting women, causing a disproportionate accumulation of subcutaneous adipose tissue in the extremities. It carries a lower risk of diabetes and cardio-metabolic dysfunctions compared to obesity, but coincident obesity can complicate diagnosis and treatment. This retrospective study included 607 female LiDo patients, ≥18years, stage 1-3, from Germany, the UK, and Spain. Data were collected as part of the standard initial assessment for LiDo patients. Based on waist-to-height-ratio (WHtR), 15.2% of patients were underweight, 45.5% normal weight, 22.1% overweight and 17.3% obese. There was a significant association between WHtR category and age group. Body mass index (BMI) is often overestimated, leading to misdiagnosis of obesity. The use of BMI also affects the recent decision of the German Federal Joint Committee on the reimbursement of liposuction costs by health insurance funds. Patients with BMI of more than 40kg/m2 are excluded from cost coverage, and those with BMI between 35kg/m2 and 40kg/m2 must first receive conservative obesity therapy. In conclusion, the sole use of BMI in lipedema is unreliable and, in contrast to WHtR, leads to inaccurate diagnoses overestimating overweight and obesity.

Review of Lorella Bosco and Micaela Latini, eds. Animals and Humans in German Literature, 1800–2000: Exploring the Great Divide. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020. xviii + 160 pp. £58.99, hb.

Inhibition tasks usually require subjects to exert control to act correctly when a competing action plan is prepotent. In comparative psychology, one concern about the existing inhibition tasks is that the relative contribution of inhibitory control to performance (as compared to learning or object knowledge) is rarely explicitly investigated. We addressed this problem by presenting chimpanzees with a spatial foraging task in which they could acquire food more efficiently by learning which objects were baited. In Experiment 1, we examined how objects that elicited a prepotent approach response, transparent cups containing food, affected their learning rates. Although showing an initial bias to approach these sealed cups with visible food, the chimpanzees learned to avoid them more quickly across sessions compared to a color discrimination. They also learned a color discrimination more quickly if the incorrect cups were sealed such that a piece of food could never be hidden inside them. In Experiment 2, visible food of 2 different types was sealed in the upper part of the cups: 1 type signaled the presence of food reward hidden underneath; the cups with the other type were sealed. The chimpanzees learned more quickly in a congruent condition (the to-be-chosen food cue matched the reward) than in an incongruent condition (the to-be-avoided food cue matched the reward). Together, these findings highlight that performance in inhibition tasks is affected by several other cognitive abilities such as object knowledge, memory, and learning, which need to be quantified before meaningful comparisons can be drawn. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).